Abrams
is Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director
for Near East and North African Affairs. Conveniently,
he didn't need Senate confirmation for this appointment
because he probably wouldn't have gotten it. Before
his present position, Abrams had been head of W's National
Security Council's office on democracy, human rights,
and international relations, also insulated from Congressional
approval. As we will see, Abrams holding that office
suggests a morbid streak in Bush's sense of humor.

While
Assistant Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan, Abrams
pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding
evidence from Congress by lying over his role in the
Iran-Contra scandal. Upon entering office, Bush senior
pardoned him and other Iran-Contra figures, thereby
safeguarding any adverse political or legal consequences
arising from his own inexplicable memory lapses when
questioned about those affairs.

Under
Reagan, Abrams' area of specialization was Latin America,
and he compiled a strong record of assisting Latin American
dictatorships in covering up their crimes, particularly
in El Salvador. He covered up the Salvadorean Army's
massacre of peasants in the town of El Mozote as well
as the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero by right
wing terrorists.

For
example, in 1985, on Nightline Abrams denied that the
US-funded Salvadoran military had slaughtered civilians
at two sites the previous summer. They had. Three years
earlier, when two American journalists reported that
an elite, US-trained military unit had massacred hundreds
of villagers in El Mozote, Abrams told Congress that
the story was false, and we needed to give more US aid
to El Salvador's military. David Corn writes that "The
massacre, as has since been confirmed, was real. And
in 1993 after a UN truth commission, which examined
22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year
civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 percent of the
abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and
its death-squad allies, Abrams declared, 'The Administration's
record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.'"

Robert
White, former ambassador to El Salvador, offers a more
accurate assessment: "Just because appointments
to the NSC are not subject to the advice and consent
of the Senate, it does not follow that this key White
House agency should be used as a dumping ground and
rehabilitation center. Unrepentant former officials
who lie to Congress merit ostracism, not inclusion in
the highest councils of our government."

"I'll
bring in a group of men and women who are focused on
what's best for America, honest men and women, decent
men and women, women who will see service to our country
as a great privilege and who will not stain the house."
(Bush on 1/15/00)